Hit the Blue Button!

In my internship a common complaint was that our patients seem disengaged from their own care. They never seemed to remember their medication lists, their own medical history, or other basic items of the medical history. Part of the issue was previous paternalism on the part of doctors that convinced our patients that their care was not their responsibility, but instead, the responsibility of doctors and myriad medical institutions. That's why I got very excited to hear about the Blue Button project.

The Blue Button is an effort by the US Chief Technology Officer and the VA to enable transparency of medical data for patients. Essentially, the VA has a website where after clicking an aptly constructed blue button, a VA patient can download their complete electronic medical record. So far over 300,000 VA patients have downloaded their records.

I see this as incredibly empowering for the patient. Now the patients can be their own keepers – at least as far as the medical data we are so eager to get our hands on when a new patient arrives in our clinic. At the very least, a patient will be able to say "hit my blue button" to a doctor asking questions of their medical history that they may not easily remember. At the most, this has the potential to directly engage the more curious patient in their own care. What do these pulmonary function tests mean? What does it mean that the radiology report says "hazy infiltrate in the right lower lung"? Moreover, giving patients access to their own records easily will allow patients to act as a check on us. Savvy patients can use that information to question whether our recommendations are truly evidence-based or cost-effective.